Clay Jewelry Dish

When my husband and I got married, I decided that instead of using a ring bearers pillow we would get one ofthese custom ceramic dishesto carry our rings in. We had it stamped with the phrase “ever thine, ever mine, ever ours” along with our wedding dish. Here’s a picture of it from our wedding day {image credit Elisha Orin}:

I have used the dish as a jewelry holder on my vanity ever since then {and now on our bedside table} but it has chipped and it is also really small. I had seen a couple similar things on Pinterest but never with any actual instructions so on a whim last weekend I picked up some clay at the craft store and decided to try my hand at making my own. I used the same techniques as my imprinted clay ornaments and am loving my bigger and better version! I let my husband pick the quote, a line from the Great Gatsby that he loves and our wedding date at the bottom. I can’t think of a more thoughtful Valentine’s gift for your loved one, plus you can use it to display any jewelry you might get! I also think these would make a great wedding gift for someone, just pick a bible verse or quote that means something special to them!I gold leafed mine to match our bedside table and lamp, but you could leave it white or even make one in a colored clay! I love how bright and light it looks in the daytime{in the first pic above} and how much the gold reflects at nighttime with the light from our lamp:

1. Roll the clay out on a piece of parchment paper in a circle that’s just slightly bigger than the mouth of your bowl, in my case this was just over 6″ and there was just barely enough clay for about 1/8″ thickness. Flip the bowl over and use it to cut out the circle that you’ll be using as the bowl’s base.

2. Lay a piece of lace or trim down where you want the imprint to be and lightly press with your fingers to imprint it into the clay.

3. Carefully peel the trim off of the clay to reveal the design.

4. Use your stamps to imprint whatever message, quote, date, etc. you would like on your bowl.

5. Carefully place the clay round in your greased bowl and press down to the bottom of the bowl. Don’t worry about the rough edges we will clean them up after baking!

6. Bake at 275 for about 15 minutes until the clay is dry to the touch {mine took 18 minutes}, remove from the oven and let cool completely in the bowl. Once it’s cool, turn the bowl upside down and your bowl should slip right out. Use a sanding block or sandpaper to smooth out all the edges.

1. This is the bowl with no gold leafing, decide if you want to leave it like this or continue and gold leaf it like I did.

2. Starting on the bottom of the bowl, brush matte modge podge in small sections and cover with pieces of gold leaf. I get mine at the Hobby Lobby, in a huge bag with pieces of gold leafing instead of the sheets because it’s less expensive and you get so much more!

3. Continue overlapping small sections, letting the adhesive dry before brushing any excess off with a soft paintbrush. Mine was pretty sparse as you can see in the third picture in the set above after one coat, so I did two coats. Let dry completely upside down, brush off any excess and wipe with a silk cloth to shine it up!

4. The top of the dish is a little trickier because of the design and the fact that I only wanted to gold leaf the imprint. Use a small paint brush and only put modge podge on the areas you want gold. Do the same for the rim all around the dish, let dry completely, brush off excess and rub with a silk cloth to shine it up!